#dybo

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x12 - (Dis)Members Only

Written by: Jeremy Boxen

Directed by: Steve DiMarco

Original Air Date: December 5, 2010

Almost exactly 10 years ago today, Lost Girl episode 1x08 - Vexed aired for the first time on Showtime.

It’s been a while, but I’m finally back on my Lost Girl bullshit.

The second to last episode of Season 1 has Bo and Dyson being all domestic and nauseatingly square and heterosexual, where they go undercover with Kenzi to a rich country club where illegal immigrant employees have been disappearing.

YIKES! What a loaded episode. 

And you know what, in honor of an evil megalomaniacal racist guilty of countless crimes against humanity being elected out of the office of US president, I’m gonna post my first Lost Girl Rewatch blg post in months. Yee haw!

I’m pretty sure Kenzi and Hale represent the entire Lost Girl fandom at this moment. This screenshot is so memetic, honestly. So accurate.

Kenzi and Hale, like the rest of us, are fed up with all this boring heterosexual nonsense, and make a bet on when Bo and Dyson will break up again.

For the record, I do support heterosexuality on this show. But only when it’s Kenzi and Hale. I adore them.

So some tree monster is nabbing illegal immigrant employees at a rich white people country club.

To be honest, this episode doesn’t ever delve too deeply into the political and social issues it’s nodding to. It never refers to the illegal immigrants as anything other than “illegals” or “foreigners” when referencing discrimination, and so it doesn’t directly address the issue of racism even though it’s clearly at play--most if not all of the illegal immigrants we see are from Latin America, Kenzi goes undercover as a Venezuelan, and all the country club members are rich white people. The show doesn’t directly acknowledge this even though it wants us to make the connection. It also doesn’t make clear what country we are in. Lost Girl tries to keep it’s location ambiguous throughout its run, so we don’t quite know if we’re in the US or Canada. But...I mean, come on. My money is on Canada.

Let me just explain the Fae of the Week up front: it’s called a “landwyght,” and it is bound to a piece of land on which it periodically feeds on the inhabitants to then fertilize said land with their remains. The remaining inhabitants on the land then reap enormous rewards in the form of riches, promotions, abundant plant growth, and so on. In this case, the landwyght periodically feeds off illegal immigrant employees so that the country club members reap riches.

I feel like it’s pretty obvious they were trying to create some kind of bloated metaphor here a la old school Buffy, where the rich white members of the country club are literally feeding off the sacrifices of the immigrant employees and becoming richer and richer while the sacrifices get swept under the table and forgotten.

But to be honest, I feel like it could have been executed better. The whole thing feels pretty half-assed, and the immigrant employees themselves--the actual victims--are never front and center where they should be. The main focus of our concern is Kenzi, who isn’t a real immigrant, only one in disguise. They only get a parting gift at the end of the episode when Bo lets them rise up and kill the monster. It’s lame at best. Feels very much like a white person wrote this in 2010. I do appreciate the effort, though.

Anyway, an old friend of Kenzi’s from her street days asks for help since his cousin Thumper is one of the employees who went missing. Bo cheekily asks if his cousin is a rabbit, to which the guy replies that it’s just a street name.

“This one’s name was Meow Meow,” he says of Kenzi.

So Bo and Dyson go undercover as a ritzy husband and wife while Kenzi goes undercover as an employee.

Bonus screenshot of Dyson teasing Kenzi and Kenzi flipping Dyson off. Later on in the episode, you will see the characters having a serious conversation about the case while Kenzi and Hale tease and swat at each other in the background, and it just feels very organic. One of the things I always liked about this show was how much the characters felt like real friends.

Creepy groundskeeper staring at Kenzi from the trees. Come on, it’s obviously him. They should already be on this guy’s ass. It’s him! Hello! The creepy groundskeeper!

What’s-her-face is the Chair of the Board of something or other, and her rival basically tells her that she’s going to unseat her. She makes this face when she says that she was afraid of that. Oh, dear.

Oh.

This is her whacking the woman in the back of the head with a golf club and knowingly letting the monster eat her, by the way.

So anyway, Saskia randomly shows up at Bo’s door with a charming sassy insult, as she does. God love her. Only Inga Cadranel could make the character this charming and yet this terrifying at the same time. She’s brilliant.

While Kenzi and Hale are searching the director’s office undercover, Hale tries to turn it into a sexy moment, which Kenzi quickly rebuffs with, “This is not a sexy undercover moment!” It’s another early cute moment.  🥺

Dyson is territorial and tells Bo that he doesn’t want to share her. Blah-dy-blah-dy-blah.

He then tells her that since she is a succubus, it is not in her nature to be monogamous. His exact words.

Bo replies, smartly, that she is more than just her species.

Way to go and mansplain to Bo what is and isn’t “in her nature,” Dyson. And good for Bo for basically telling him that that whole line of thinking is dangerous, untrue, and stupid. Like, WAY dangerous, untrue, and stupid.

Dyson admits that he is territorial and dumb. I do appreciate that, at least. He can see his own flaws. Whether or not he will make efforts to change is another story, but at least he recognizes is shortcomings, unlike Lauren.

Bo tells Dyson that the only way their relationship can work is if there are no secrets between them. Dyson guiltily agrees, but he and Trick are still keeping something big from her.

Dyson tells Trick that he is going to tell Bo everything if Trick doesn’t. Obviously, Trick is a prick about it.

So it turns out that it’s actually NOT the groundskeeper. Okay, fair enough. But still, it was driving me nuts all episode that he was the obvious culprit and it took them until the very end to question him. They could have narrowed their options and found out it was this lady a lot sooner.

Aaaand in the end, Saskia walks up to the precinct and assaults Dyson while he’s waiting for Bo. She declares that she is the one Dyson is looking for.

After Bo arrives and Saskia leaves, with Dyson dying on the floor, Bo manages to give Dyson some life energy back, mastering a new succubus skill that she once saw Saskia perform. We learn that Saskia’s real name is Aife, and she’s someone that Dyson knows.

That’s pretty much how the episode ends. No conclusions. All that’s left is the final episode in Season 1.

[artreider]

I love this scene because of how it shows that Lauren and Dyson’s friendship is so close they think along the same lines. “Bf” and the “chi-suck” lines. I am here for this threesomes friendship, though if Zoie is correct and it would become an open relationship between she and Bo that would be fun to explore as Dyson as a third. Also to see the three of them raising a child would be a hoot...and throw in Kenzie in the mix that’d be great.

[freyjaiam]

the one thing i loved about Lost Girl is that Bo, that beautiful bisexual, could be with someone within her circle... And the others wouldn’t be complete bitches about it. Oh, there would be snips here and there at each other... But they’d never go to Bo and be like “it’s either them or me.”

Not Lauren. Not Dyson. Not Tamsin.

I miss Lost Girl. I miss my ships. I miss my OT4.

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x11 - Faetal Justice (gettin real tired of your puns, Michelle, jk I never will)

Written by: Peter Mohan

Directed by: Robert Lieberman

Original Air Date: November 28, 2010

Oops. I missed a week. Sorry :( I’m back with episode 1x11.

Dyson gets framed for murdering some Dark Fae, and the gang has to prove him innocent.

Hey, remember the club, guys? Remember what that was like? Also Vex is back. Yay.

I wish my kitchen looked that fancy. I can’t keep vegetables that fresh. Their setup only looks like it will produce tasty food, though, because apparently they can’t cook for shit.

I am excited enough to see Hale that I took this screenshot for no reason.

But anyway, Bo and Kenzi are of course investigating the crime, as they do, while Dyson invokes sanctuary back at the Dal. Which basically means that Trick clears the whole bar out and lets Dyson hang out there for some amount of time where the Dark Fae can’t immediately come after him for killing one of their own.

They end up back at the club that Dyson woke up next to, which is Vex’s club. They start to suspect Vex may have something to do with framing Dyson for the murder. I can’t imagine why.

Vex makes a comment about how “another killer in the room (Bo) adds to the excitement,” to which Kenzi fiercely replies that Bo isn’t a killer. Vex is skeptical, considering how many people she has killed over the years, and suggests that he and Bo compare “scores.”

That hit below the belt.

Evony arrives at the Dal to pick up Dyson, in spite of sanctuary, because she has decided that the rules don’t apply to her. “Just think of me as a VIP,” she says. “I do.”

What a queen. Listen, is she wrong? Do the rules apply to Evony? Need they?

She has such queen energy that I love every time she shows up, even if she does absolutely nothing except make snarky comments. You have to appreciate the dominating energy of the woman in charge of the entire darker half of the supernatural underworld. She eventually backs off though.

Meanwhile, to Bo’s surprise, Lauren shows up at the precinct to discuss the case with her and Hale. (Hale invited her, and didn’t think to tell either of them that the other would be there, because he has no idea what’s going on between them.)

Bo is still pissed as fuck. I didn’t bother getting a screenshot, but the glare she gives Lauren is just as withering as it was last time.

So Lauren does...science-y stuff, I guess. I don’t really listen to what she’s saying when she talks about her science shit. I think Lauren is suggesting that Dyson turn himself in to the Dark Fae, though? So they can compare bite marks or something? Okay, I just rewatched the scene. Lauren suggests that Dyson turn himself in and wait while they go through a whole forensics analysis of the scene to determine his innocence (not acknowledging the possibility that evidence against Dyson may have been planted). Bo is like, “fuck no.” Lauren claims that in spite of the fact that she and Dyson “haven’t always been on the best of terms,” she is “actually trying to help here.”

It doesn’t end well. It’s awkward.

Hmm...*narrows eyes* Wait.

Stick around, Lauren fans. You’ll love this. I’m analyzing Lauren.

Lauren’s solutions to problems are always very...clinical. They’re clinical without fail, often to the point of being...not good solutions.

Lauren’s solution to Dyson’s problem--being accused of murder--is to have him turn himself in so that they can run tests and have the evidence prove him innocent. This is such a clearly half-assed idea, I don’t even really know why she suggested it. This idea is like if you could not care less about Dyson or this entire situation at all but you were dragged into being a part of the brainstorming session and you were forced to contribute something. It scans as laziness. Like either Lauren’s brain is too exhausted to put any energy whatsoever into trying to help Dyson, or she actually doesn’t care about him at all and is only there out of obligation and because of Bo. Hm.

Lauren’s solutions to problems don’t just rely on science, I get she’s a scientist and those are the skills she brings to the table. She goes a step farther. Her solutions are always devoid of emotion. Think about why that is.

I mean, turning Dyson in to the Dark Fae is objectively a terrible idea, first of all because they would one hundred percent immediately string him up and torture him for information. (Which is exactly what they do later in the episode!) Lauren is not stupid. She’s a smart gal. She should know this. If she knows that Dyson would be tortured, why would she suggest he turn himself in unless she has absolutely no emotional investment in his physical or mental wellbeing whatsoever? Again, it’s a clinical solution that treats the people involved as though they are pieces in a puzzle.

Second of all, Lauren suggests they run a bunch of tests and rely on forensic evidence to determine whether or not Dyson is innocent. She says, “Hopefully [the animal hairs on the body] won’t match Dyson’s DNA, and hopefully we’ll get [the results] on time.” 

“That’s way too many ‘hopefully’s,” Bo snaps back.

Lauren doesn’t seem that concerned with whether the hairs do or don’t match Dyson’s DNA. I mean, “hopefully” they won’t, but she is content to take the risk, let the situation play out, and let the evidence speak.

But she is also completely ignoring the possibility that even if the evidence incriminates Dyson, it might have been planted there by whoever is trying to frame him. What then? There would be no way to prove that it was planted in time--the Dark Fae would instantly execute him, and no one could stop them because he’d be in their custody. Even a cursory review of Lauren’s half-assed, not-thought-out plan reveals that it’s past risky and more in the realm of stupid.

So you tell me. I’m more interested in hearing what anyone else has to say about her than writing what I think. What is the deal with Lauren? Why is she like this? Is she so cold and unfeeling that she doesn’t have any concern for the physical and emotional wellbeing of others? Does she just not give a fuck about Dyson specifically? Or is she so burnt out and exhausted by the mental strain of her job and her enslavement that she can’t summon any emotional energy whatsoever, and has to completely rely on cold logic to offer anything at all?

I said Lauren fans would like this because I was analyzing her, but I neglected to mention that I would also be dunking on her. Sorry if you were duped. I feel like I offered her a way out at the end there, though. Give me all your pro-Lauren arguments if you feel so inclined.

Anyway, Bo and Hale have a nice little mini-conversation afterwards. Hale confesses that he once thought Bo might be bad for Dyson, that she’d break his heart or he’d destroy himself for her.

He tells her he was wrong, and that she’s “the real deal.” How sweet.

The only witness to the crime is apparently this human girl named Porscha, who reminds Kenzi a lot of herself. Porscha is also young, on the streets, and a runaway from a bad home situation. 

I don’t really care about her or like her as a character, but I do appreciate that her presence prompts Kenzi to drop a few more tidbits of information about her past here and there. For instance, she mentions that she’s been on her own since she was 15, which seems like a long time but is actually only like four years because Kenzi is 19 and therefore a literal baby. 

More interesting is this exchange. Porscha comments that it must be nice that Kenzi and Bo have each other. Kenzi responds a little awkwardly. She agrees that it is nice, but then she says that she’s still getting used to it. She’s still getting used to “being noticed.” Because when she was at home, she says, it was always better to not be noticed. “That’s when things got ugly.”

Yeah. So as if we didn’t already know, Kenzi comes from an abusive home. A home that was so awful that it was better to run away and be on the streets at 15. Then she was completely alone for four years, and homeless for that entire time. 

Think about it. Living with Bo like this must feel so odd. Kenzi has never lived in a house with another person before where it actually felt like a home and she actually felt safe. The way she sort of averts her eyes, tenses a little bit when she says she’s still getting used to it (Ksenia is fantastic as always by the way) is such a realistic portrayal of a response to recovery from trauma.

The way I like to think of it is this. Going from being in a long-term traumatic situation to being in a safe and loving situation is kind of like putting a frostbitten hand in warm water. Warming it up is good, it’s healing, but when your hand is so used to being cold, warming it up is going to hurt like hell. Recovering from trauma is kind of like that. Good things can hurt, especially when you’re not used to them.

But it doesn’t hurt quite so bad for Kenzi that she’s ready to flee and go back to being alone the streets, which is what is familiar to her. It just seems like it’s mildly uncomfortable. And that’s good. Because it means she can get used to being loved and having a family.

Jesus, why am I writing these things every week, they’re so long. LMAO help

So the episode ends with the reveal that it was the bartender all along! GASP! Side note: the whole reason this episode happened is because this bartender, who is clearly an adult man (physically in his 20s or 30s but actually much older since I assume he’s Fae?) was apparently “in love” with the human girl Porscha, who, based on her conversations with Kenzi, is definitely supposed to be a teenager. And also based on her conversations with Kenzi, Porscha has even “stayed over a few times” at his place. Can you say creepy? Adult man taking advantage of a young girl on the street who has no family and nowhere else to go? Grooming her? Just saying.

In a moment that I find somewhat disturbing and rather cold, the main gang all walk out and leave the bartender to be (most likely) brutally tortured and murdered by Vex and the Morrigan. That’s him up there. I mean, I know the Dark Fae are a practically untouchable political powerhouse, and there’s not really anything Bo and the others could do, but still. They totally just left this guy to his death.

But significantly, the episode ends with Bo and Dyson sharing a kiss, as they reaffirm their feelings for one another, and seemingly enter an official romantic relationship.

Oh boy! How cute. :) I wonder what’s next for these two.

Surely not heartbreak and suffering?

Big plot developments of the episode: Bo and Dyson are (it’s implied) officially an item now. This is Bo’s first legit committed relationship in the series. #dybo #neverforgetwhereitallbegan #rip #F and respect to the two people and a potato chip who like this ship #will this actually tag this post

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x07 - ArachnoFaebia

Written by: Emily Andras

Directed by: John Fawcett

Original Air Date: October 31, 2010

In which I claim to have nothing to say about this episode but spend a long time ranting about Lauren and Dyson’s pettiness and other things anyway.

Bo and Kenzi begin to have their first little squabbles as roommates. Then a supernatural giant spider gets unleashed in their house, bites them, and turns them into paranoid homicidal maniacs. The house is quarantined so they can’t get out, and their only choices are kill the spider and free themselves from its spell or die in a fire, if they don’t kill each other first.

“It sounds like whispering kids or giggling elves. Did you bring elves home last night? I’m not judging, I just want to know.”

ArachnoFaebia. Don’t have much to say about this one.

I feel like I should, though. I mean, Emily Andras wrote it, and I usually like her episodes. (Except when I REALLY don’t, but we won’t get to the episode I’m thinking of until Season 3.) Plus, it’s about Bo and Kenzi, which is what I am here for. Eh. It’s a perfectly fine and entertaining episode.

Fuck Pete, Kenzi! Fuck Pete!

Ah, not cool on the cock block, Bo.

“I wish I had man slaves who did whatever I want.” Me too, Kenzi.

Bo and Kenzi have their first “fight,” which is really more of a catty little banter than anything.

Oh, wait. I definitely missed this line the first couple of times I watched this show a million years ago. The setup: Bo compares the two of them to “real life sisters,” which is cute. A few lines later, she says, “Hey, I’m picky, not psychotic.” Kenzi replies under her breath, “Family is always psychotic.” She kind of mumbles it so it’s hard to hear, but I love this. It’s touching, obviously, that she admits to herself out loud that she considers Bo her family. And, of course, it’s another dig at the biological family we have yet to meet or learn about.

This scene at the beginning with Ksenia Solo playing Kenzi playing an exorcist is great.

I really love the Bo, Kenzi, Dyson, and Hale dynamic. They have good chemistry. It’s a fun foursome. Not just as two pairs of best friends plus two pairs of love interests, but as all four of them together. They seem like they’d have a good time hanging out. Bo and Kenzi are like the quintessential lady BFFs, with Dyson and Hale as a dude BFF counterpart.

Bo, oblivious as hell, tries to sit down with Lauren and Dyson and have a genuine friendly heart-to-heart. Being as Lauren and Dyson fucking hate each other, this works out very poorly. Dyson and Lauren spit some nasty words back and forth at each other, all of this stemming from little to no provocation. It’s just the sight of the other sitting next to Bo that raises their hackles, and it takes nothing to have them at each other’s throats. Considering that from where I’m sitting, which is not particularly invested in either pairing, they haven’t known Bo that relatively long, their jealousy seems a bit extreme.

Surprisingly, Lauren doesn’t really take the first shot at Dyson, other than a passive aggressive comment about him not returning her calls, which is no doubt deserved. Dyson, prickled at the reminder and at her presence, resorts to racism. For the cheapest possible digs, of course. How flattering of you, Dyson.

Love when we get to see and hear more Hale. Like this scene where he calls out Kenzi for being jealous of Bo’s ability to seduce anyone. When he’s not fronting as a hyper-horny dudebro, Hale tends to be one of the more coy and observant characters, and I’ve always found him to be both fun to watch and criminally underutilized. But boy, will we get to that later.

In the scene where Bo goes to get a check-up with Lauren at the Light Fae hospital, Bo admits that she was insensitive when she briefly tried to get Lauren and Dyson to hang out at the Dal. I am a bit impressed and proud of her that she is at least aware of it and owning up to it.

Kenzi and Lauren make-out hallucination weird as fuck, no other comment.

Dyson looks nice in this suit. That’s all I wanted to say.

I’m not gonna lie, if Lauren wasn’t a lesbian, I’d be tempted to ship Wolfpants, y’all.

While not as quite as unflattering as Dyson taking cheap shots at her humanity and literal slavery, this bit where Lauren sends him a little nasty, “And we’re close. She knows she can talk to me,” is also kind of unflattering. She looks him dead in the eyes and wants him to know that she and Bo have a deeper bond than Bo has with him (supposedly). Pretty nasty. I guess he deserves it, though, after his douchebaggery at the bar. Dyson fires back with a pretty sick burn by reminding Lauren that he and Bo are, in fact, still fucking. Dyson and Lauren just constantly engage in petty dick-waving in every scene they are in together. Strap in, because this won’t change any time soon.

So why do the “infected” have to be exterminated along with the spider? Is it contagious? I thought people are only infected if they’re bitten? Just get them out of there and burn the place down with the spider in it. Pretty cold of Lauren and Trick to just be like, “Oh well, fuck Bo and Kenzi and Hale, then,” and be prepared to sacrifice them if they can’t figure out how to kill the thing in the next hour or whatever.

What Bo does to Hale when he’s tied up is gross. And, uh, what’s the word. Problematic.

Talking about this in depth is going to open up a whole can of worms, and it probably deserves its own post, but it’s worth briefly acknowledging here what we already consciously or subconsciously know. Which is that a lot of the time, when Bo feeds on or uses her succubus powers on someone, either without them knowing or against their will, it scans as a dubiously consensual sexual encounter at best. In situations like the one with Hale, it reads as straight up non-con, or worse.

But being as that’s the nature of what a succubus is, that’s a given. What matters is how the narrative treats it. Is it treated well in this episode? Not really. Bo was supernaturally brainwashed at the time so it’s not like it was really her doing it, but it kinda bothers me that she defends her feeding on him as, “I did what I had to do,” and at the end of the episode, Hale begs Kenzi not to tell Dyson that “[he] kissed Bo,” as if he had any agency in the matter. I never really thought about this when I first watched the show in high school, so it didn’t bother me. Watching it now, it makes me uncomfortable.

The main character is a succubus, and at the end of the day this show is all good edgy campy sexy supernatural fun, and it's not that deep. Really, it's not. But her being a succubus can sometimes make for a tricky sea to navigate. One of Michelle Lovretta’s main goals was sex positivity, and I think the show succeeds at that in regards to its consensual adult sexual relationships. As to how much or whether dubious consent scenarios muddy up that message, not really sure how I feel yet.

“You’d pick me over Bo, right, Hale? You’re on my side?” Hmmm. I sense shades of a burgeoning intimacy here.

KC Collins playing Hale as a psychopath is pretty scary.

This one-off character is cool and seems interesting. It’s a shame we don’t see more of her.

Bo’s one brain cell not understanding science is really cute.

Dyson tells Lauren that he doesn’t trust her motives. She’s “inconsistent.” And it’s true. She is. He admits to not understanding why Lauren would callously call a strike on Bo but then turn around and kill a man to save her. And to be honest, at this point, I don’t either. Something about Lauren is shifty and Dyson is right to pick up on it. Lauren’s response, “…this time I was Bo’s hero,” is unnecessary and kinda toxic but whatever.

Next up, we have episode 1x08, which was the original pilot. They wrote it, shot it, and showed it to the network in order to pitch the show. Obviously, it sold. Which makes the episode’s distinctively darker tone as compared to the rest of the season quite interesting.

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is. 

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes. 

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children. 

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children. 

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo. 

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode. 

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust. 

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

[lostgirlrewatch]

Lost Girl Rewatch 2019!

Hello! I’m Maddie, and I’m a huge fan of the show Lost Girl (2010-2013).

I first watched the show when I was in high school, around the time when Season 3 had just finished airing, and now I’m a few years older than Kenzi! Wild.

I more or less completely fell off the bandwagon and haven’t seen the show at all since probably 2015. But memory is a pretty powerful thing. To this day, I still consider Lost Girl to be one of my favorite shows and have fond memories of it, in spite of how it was tragically, prematurely cancelled after its third season and how they went on to make a couple of horrendous fan seasons. I have been meaning to rewatch it for a while now, and in the interest of sparing my friends my screaming about it, I decided I may as well make a sort of rewatch liveblog in case absolutely anyone out there is interested in hearing the take of an old fan jumping back in after having not seen it for some time.

I don’t have a set schedule at this time, nor am I sure how consistent I will be. Some episodes may draw full essays out of me, while others might not warrant much commenting on. Feel free to ask me anything!

There will probably be spoilers. My intention is to share my thoughts from the perspective of someone who has seen the show before. I will try to limit full-on discussion of late-game events in earlier episodes, but part of the fun for me will be viewing the show through the lens of being quite familiar with the characters and with the many things that eventually happen to them, as well as having a full overview of the show. However, there might be people out there who have not seen the show before but would be interested in watching it while reading this blog, and if there was more interest in a spoiler-free episode-by-episode analysis/thought dump I would definitely be open to that. Lemme know what you think.

I considered waiting until next year to do this since it would be right in time for the tenth anniversary of the pilot airing, but then I figured, eh, fuck it!

Lastly, I want to make clear that this will be an anti-Lauren and anti-Doccubus blog. Having not seen the show in some time, I truly intend on coming in to it ready to have a fresh perspective. However, I vehemently disliked this character and pairing when I was a hardcore fan way back when, and I do not anticipate liking her or it now. If that bothers you, and I totally understand if it does, do not follow.

Here we go.

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x05 - Dead Lucky

Written by:  Emily Andras

Directed by: John Fawcett

Original Air Date:  October 17, 2010

It’s Emily Andras’s first episode, and it’s good. Bo gets solicited (kidnapped) for a job by some Dark Fae. They want her to find some guy who cheated at gambling and walked away with their money. Meanwhile, Dyson continues to be gross, the overarching plot progresses, and Kenzi is still the best character.

Bo and Dyson set boundaries for their new friends-with-benefits arrangement. What’s sad is that one of Bo’s rules actually has to be, “I get to take whatever cases I want.” As if she needs his permission.

His response? “As long as you tell me what cases you do take.” Gross, Dyson. Why the need to know her business? Creepy over-protectiveness? I mean, I’m sure cleaning up after Bo’s mistakes is annoying, but I doubt it’s just a professional interest.

“Sorry about your, uh...”

“Get in the van.”

“...nuts.”

Man, the cringey puns in this show…*stiff laughter* I sure missed them…

Ooh…this is Emily Andras’s first episode! We’ll be seeing a lot more of her name in the credits as the series goes on…the mark she left on the show is indelible, and her influence cannot be understated. 

“Mama’s too tired to chat. Oh, but could you call Dyson and tell him I’d love to talk? Thanks.”

“Will do. Partner.”

Yikes.

Oh, and this next scene. Kenzi is not too pleased with Bo’s priorities.

Andras’s first episode and Kenzi is awfully snarky. Or at least, a fair bit snarkier than we’ve seen her in the first four episodes. She has every right to be. We’re starting to peel back the layers, get a little more access to the different dimensions of her personality. I adore that Kenzi is so defensive of Bo, but more than that—she’s mad at Dyson on a personal level. On some level, she had accepted him into her circle. By accepting him as a love interest for Bo, she accepted him as being worthy of being her friend. Even if it was in a small way, she placed her faith in him and he betrayed her. 

This kind of thing does not go over well for a person like Kenzi, who has been so deeply hurt in the past and does not open up to others easily. When you are hurt, it takes a lot of courage to get to a place where you are comfortable trusting someone again. When people turn around and betray that trust, it absolutely fucks with you and reinforces the original wound. Again, this is all in regards to a relatively minor incident, but we can still see signs of Kenzi’s trust issues in her behavior. 

And the little note she slaps on Dyson that says, “I’m stupid,” is such a weak comeback that you just know she’s a sap at heart and would be willing to forgive him once she’s ready. It displays that sort of childish side to her personality. A child who was forced to grow up too quickly, but one who still has that sort of vulnerability to her.

“When did he….bite it?” Lmao. Kenzi’s inability to deal with genuine displays of emotion is so endearing and heartbreaking.

“Rules are meant to be broken.” Bo says, in spite of everything she laid out with Dyson and in spite of the fact that she knows it will end badly if she continues to be emotionally involved. And Bo’s got this sort of impish, childish side to her, too. In a different way. Again, an almost teenager-ish immaturity.

Ooh, Kenzi and Hale’s first real interaction. Interesting.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what any of you think. Only Bo.”

Well, that sure is a corpse you’re objectifying. This guy is gross.

I love when Bo and Kenzi tag team in a fight.

Hale, it wouldn’t hurt if you stopped making those “Getting better” comments as if Kenzi needs your approval to be a badass. Just saying.

Which. She really, really is.

Dyson is like, totally crazy.

This moment is incredibly unflattering for him. There’s something about the way he completely loses it when control of the situation is taken out of his hands and he is rendered helpless, and how viciously he responds when Bo is in a remotely tight spot in a fight. It rubs me the wrong way, and I suspect a lot of others as well.

And Dyson and Kenzi are friends again. They know things about each other now that Bo doesn’t know. They are in each other’s confidence.

This might be the first episode that portrays the Dark Fae as not inherently evil.

“I’d make a bad snack. Never had much luck.” Oh, my. “You taste like a survivor.” Looks like that hit.

“Maybe it’s better not knowing family. It’s complicated.” This, plus the comment she made earlier in the episode about how she learned everything she knows about back room poker from her father. Kenzi makes a couple of offhand comments about her family in this episode that hint at a fraught relationship with them, and almost read to me like a cry for help. (Though I’m biased.) Obviously in this scene, Bo is having a moment which takes the focus, but at the very least, earlier with that poker comment, it seemed like a good opportunity to maybe…ask her to talk more about that experience, if she felt like it.

I kind of get the vibe that Emily Andras saw Kenzi on the page and zoned in on her right away, because she could just tell, like. This is the one. This character is worth delving into. And she sure does.

Some takeaways from this episode—we’re digging deeper into Kenzi’s pain and insecurities. Kenzi and Hale form the foundations of a friendship for the first time, as do Kenzi and Dyson. We start to see Dyson’s problematic overprotective man bullshit start to rear its ugly head. And boy, is it ugly. The Dark Fae aren’t necessarily any more morally ambiguous than the Light. And of course, on a plot level, we learn that Bo’s mother is alive, went through what looks like some fucked up shit (spoilers: it was) and is coming for her…whatever that means.